Christian legal group is ready for the Christmas Wars

By Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel

Back in 2003, Liberty Counsel noticed a swell of anti-Christmas sentiment that was threatening to become a tsunami of unconstitutional censorship. Christmas decorations were packed away or renamed. People wanting to celebrate Christmas were told to sit down and be quiet. Employees, students and even senior citizens were banned from saying certain words!

In answer to this, Liberty Counsel launched our annual Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign and now we are putting the “grinches” on the run! We promise to be a “Friend” to those who recognize Christmas and a “Foe” to those who censor it. This campaign includes encouragement, education—and, if necessary, litigation—to guard our freedom to celebrate Christmas. You can read this sample list of some of the numerous Christmas-related issues in which Liberty Counsel has been involved.

Each year we publish a new Naughty and Nice List of retailers who either censor or celebrate Christmas. Liberty Counsel encourages you to give the gift of Christmas back to the companies who support it. If retailers choose to profit from Christmas while pretending it does not exist, we encourage you to politely explain why and then patronize their competitors.

Liberty Counsel has addressed and overturned hundreds of attempts to censor Christmas in the private and public sector such as:

Restoring Nativity scenes that had been banned from public property.
Returning Christmas carols to seniors who were silenced in their nursing homes.
Lifting bans on public school students wearing red and green colors and acknowledging Christ’s birth in their classrooms.
Correcting school officials who rewrote religious words out of Christmas carols.
Retracting unconstitutional bans on Christmas holiday symbols, decorations, and expressions for city employees within public buildings.
Reversing Christmas trees and parades that were renamed “holiday” items.

Publicly sponsored Nativity scenes on public property are constitutional under the “history and traditions” test now recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. Such displays are also constitutional, where there is a secular symbol of the holiday in the general context. Privately sponsored Nativity scenes or religious symbols are also permissible on public property that has been opened to the general public for expressive activity. No secular symbol is necessary. A sign indicating private sponsorship may be helpful.

Public schools are not religion-free zones. Classroom discussion of the religious aspects of the holidays is permissible. A holiday display in a classroom may include a Nativity scene or other religious imagery so long as the context also includes secular symbols. A choral performance may include religious songs. In fact, the majority of the songs may be religious, particularly where the performance also includes secular holiday songs. If the students select their own songs independent of the direction of school officials, then there is no requirement that the songs include secular numbers. Students may distribute religious Christmas cards to their classmates during noninstructional time, before or after school or between classes. If the students are not required to dress in uniform, then they may wear clothing with religious words or symbols or religious jewelry.

On May 2, 2022, Liberty Counsel received a 9-0 decision by the U.S Supreme Court in Shurtleff v. City of Boston which struck down censorship of Christian viewpoints within the public forum the City of Boston had created for flag raisings. The High Court unanimously ruled that the City of Boston violated the Constitution by censoring a private flag in a public forum open to “all applicants” merely because the application referred to it as a “Christian flag.” The High Court soundly rejected Boston’s use of the 1971 case known as Lemon v. Kurtzman, and its so-called “Lemon Test.”

Then on June 27, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District in favor of a high school football coach was fired for silently praying on the field after games. The High Court ruled that the Bremerton School District violated both the First Amendment Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses when it fired Coach Joe Kennedy for having prayer on the 50-yard line of the football field after the game.

As a result, the High Court finally buried the court-made “Lemon Test,” citing Liberty Counsel’s decision in Shurtleff v. City of Boston involving the Christian flag.